Monday, November 17, 2008

Anyone can have an eating disorder

This was from Postsecretthis week.I remember when I was younger and told how could such a smart girl like me ever have an eating disorder or think so harshly of herself. It really used to leave me feeling such guilt for being Ed'd, like it was wrong, like I should just know better--that somehow my rationale thinking should win.

In the end, eating disorders are hardly about rationality. Instead, it's about genetics, environment, coping, and stress. And it doesn't matter who you are, what intellectual rank you have, or where you fall in society.Anyone can descent into the wraths of an eating disorder.

9 comments:

i saw that ps, too, and actually found a little relief from it. people think it's the bimbos, the cheerleaders, the stereotypical vanity-obsessed girls (no offense to the above..). when i was a musical theatre kid, i used to lean on the fact that i was surrounded by it because i went to a dance school. i felt like i wasn't suppose to have one because i was just a theatre kid.

god, this all sounds so ridiculous coming out like this, but it's true.. there are so many stereotypes around who *should* have an eating disorder and other such self-harming behaviors. for example, the kinds of kids that cut and how they only do it for attention.. that shit drives me insane.

sorry to go off on a rant. i just really can't stand the stereotypes around mental disorders/diseases. the disorder doesn't choose the person.. it doesn't care what our interests are or what our friends like. that's not how this works.

I got chills when I saw that postcard. I hope it makes people let go of the stereotypes they carry around, so that when someone opens up to them, they're able to respond with care and concern rather than derision.

I loved this card, but agree with Lisa about the chills. And oh how much I identify with the lack of rationality tiptoe. I think I had my last rational food thought about 1990! Ha!

I wish people would listen when I say Eating Disorders are not vanity illnesses, but I think they often don't want to hear it. It's too frightening to think someone would want to half starve themselves to death for any other reason than beauty. Bé

eauty is synonymous with pain, in most peoples minds. But starving? Starving for an existential crisis would force people to look too closely at the meaning of their own lives. No one likes to consider their place in the world and the purpose of their life, because it makes them think of death.